


'Til My Last Breath

by reginahalliwell



Category: Call Me By Your Name (2017), Call Me By Your Name - All Media Types, Call Me by Your Name - André Aciman
Genre: Canon - Book & Movie Combination, Fix-It, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-10-13
Updated: 2019-10-13
Packaged: 2020-12-14 14:40:45
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,306
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/21017432
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/reginahalliwell/pseuds/reginahalliwell
Summary: When the Perlmans receive Oliver's wedding invitation in the post, Elio decides to call Oliver and deliver his RSVP personally.Mixed book/film canon, using film ending. Short, sweet, unbeta-ed.





	'Til My Last Breath

“I remember everything,” Oliver had said on the phone, just after telling him he _might_ be getting married next spring. What did that mean, _might_? That there was something Elio could do to prevent it? What did he mean he remembered? Elio couldn’t imagine ever forgetting. The feel of Oliver’s hands, mouth, body all over him – inside him – would haunt him for the rest of his life.

If he didn’t _mind_. Of course Elio minded. 

But if all they had were those few short weeks, of which so many of them had been spent uncertain and antagonistic and feigning indifference to each other, then he would still count himself the luckiest man in the world. To have loved so intensely, to have been so profoundly intimate with another person, Elio imagined, was a hard thing to come by. A rare thing.

When his father had given that beautiful speech, had told him to not try to cut out his heart – what had he said? “Don’t try to feel nothing so as not to feel anything” – When his father had said this, it was so pointed that Elio presumed his father too had known a great love. Not Elio’s mother, obviously, because how does one speak so nostalgically of a great love unless it is one that doesn’t last? One that is lost, but never forgotten.

He would never swim with Oliver again.

Never kiss him again.

Never feel the touch of their bodies against each other.

Never play music for him.

Never read poetry with him.

The whole of his life ahead of him, Elio could only think back to what his time with Oliver had been, had meant. And the certain knowledge that he would never find that again with another person. 

It’s a strange thing, to live and love a whole life’s worth in such a small amount of time. His father had called it a friendship, a beautiful friendship. And it was, and it was so much more than that. He and Oliver would never be friends in that way. Elio didn’t think he could ever be around Oliver again and not _be_ with him in that way.

That call at Hanukkah had broken him. And now he needed to put himself back together, despite the piece that Oliver held of him that was no longer a part of Elio.

~

Elio had tried to leave his old room the same for as long as he could. He had forbidden Mafalda from entering – disallowed anyone from moving the beds or washing the sheets or dusting. But it was a futile attempt to preserve a part of Oliver that was no longer really there. Elio would hold these memories forever, in Billowy, in his swim trunks, in the space on his wall where the postcard of Monet’s Berm left an outline where it used to be. But Oliver was no longer here, and his scent on the sheets dissipated all too quickly.

When Oliver’s wedding invitation appeared in the post one morning, his mother and father had glanced at each other cautiously and tried to appear as nonchalant as possible to Elio. “What do you think, darling?” his mother asked his father. “Shall we go support Oliver?”

Elio’s father was generous with his response. “Of course we should. Elio, would you like to go?”

“He wouldn’t want me there,” Elio mumbled, trying to look away and avoid any eye contact. The tears he had cried that night after Oliver’s phone call had not been the first tears he cried over Oliver, nor had they been the last. It was the opening of the floodgates, the pain that couldn’t be voiced with words in any language 

“Your name is on the envelope, darling,” his mother insisted, turning it towards him where pretty calligraphy clearly stated Samuel, Annella, and Elio Perlman.

Without another word, Elio turned and left the breakfast table, his egg uneaten. He rode his bike fast and carelessly to his secret place. Monet’s berm, where he could be both alone and together with Oliver through the memories he held of them there. He lay in the grass where they shared their first kiss, where he had been overeager and licked Oliver’s finger as it stroked his lips, where he had grabbed Oliver’s crotch in an attempt to get the desired reaction out of him.

The tears came again, unbidden. He couldn’t stop them anymore. The pain wasn’t going away, and after his father’s cautioning, Elio didn’t try to force it. He let himself feel, radically feel, whenever he needed to wallow in the pain of Oliver’s absence. Which was often. Nearly every day.

He had tried to bring himself back to life. He had the occasional outing with Chiara and Marzia, and with Vimini when she wasn’t in hospital. He had never been the best company, but now he knew he was actively difficult to be around. At any moment, Elio might find himself with a nosebleed or a sudden crying jag or a spontaneous bout of nausea, to the point where his eyes had perpetual dark circles beneath them. It worried those around him, no one more than his mother and father. But they let him mourn in peace, not rushing him nor asking him to be more presentable or amiable than he wanted. He ate enough, and he made enough of a show of sleeping, and he could succeed in school without any effort whatsoever, that there was nothing else they could really expect of him.

Those who knew the truth of Elio and Oliver’s connection could see the toll it took on the boy, and those that were unaware of it thankfully didn’t pry.

Elio had not thought he could be this sorrowful, that he would be full to the brim with it at some point and then the waters would recede and free him from his pain if only he would let it wash over him. He was wrong.

~

He didn’t know what possessed him to stop in town on his way back, but he decided there and then to make a call. He looked at his watch, the watch that had once counted down the hours to a midnight tryst, and tried to figure the time difference to New York. Shit. It would be in the evening, a bit late, and he would probably get Oliver’s fiancée, whose name he still didn’t know and didn’t want to know. That way, he couldn’t imagine Oliver and _her _tangled up in bed together calling out each other’s names. He could pretend she didn’t exist.

Elio couldn’t not try to call, anyway, so he went into the shop and pulled out his change to use the payphone. It was the same shop where Oliver had once bought cigarettes, sharing them with him as they walked around the Piavé memorial. 

The phone rang, and rang a second time, and then the line picked up. “Hello?” a male voice sounded across the distance.

Elio sighed in relief and fear, glad that he didn’t have to talk to Oliver’s fiancée but suddenly unsure of what to say.

“Do you really want me at your wedding?” he chose to say in lieu of a greeting.

The line was quiet for moments. “Elio?” Oliver asked, already knowing the answer.

“Elio,” he answered, calling Oliver by his own name and confirming his identity at the other end of the line all at once.

“Of course I want you there,” Oliver said. “Otherwise I wouldn’t have invited you.”

“I can’t come,” Elio responded curtly. Then, remembering his father’s words and the walls he didn’t want to build up around himself, he continued. “I can’t be around you and not be with you,” he said. “I hope you understand.” It was as open as he could be, though not what he really wanted to say. What he felt couldn’t truly be put into words.

“Still?” Oliver said, taking in a breath in surprise.

“What, did you think I would tire of you so quickly, move on to Marzia or someone else?" 

“So quickly? Elio, it’s been months.”

“I see. Well, whatever you might feel or not feel, I can’t do it. I can’t just attend your wedding like there’s not this _thing_ between us.”

Oliver was quiet, considering his reply. Elio worried he’d ruined everything by speaking up, not fudging. But look what had come of staying silent for so long, when he and Oliver could have had six weeks together instead of only two.

“Oliver,” Oliver breathed out, the pain and longing seeping into his voice and giving Elio a glimmer of hope.

“Elio,” Elio responded, leaning his forehead against the plaster wall of the shop.

“I thought you’d just move on. You have your whole life ahead of you, Elio, and I—" 

“Do you love her?” Elio broke in. “Your fiancée.”

“Yes, I love her,” Oliver confirmed.

“I love you,” Elio stated quietly. “Do you love me?”

“Elio, what we had was beautiful and special and I—”

“I understand,” Elio said, cutting him off again. “I’ll let you go. I just wanted to tell you. It would be too painful for me, when I still—I just can’t. I hope you can forgive me.”

“There’s nothing to forgive,” Oliver countered. “But, Elio—I”

“Goodbye,” Elio said with finality, ready to wall himself up again and let himself die there. He hung up the phone, and left the shop to retrieve his bicycle. He had spoken, and it had not bettered the situation nor given him the closure he desperately sought. He had spoken and still felt like he was dying.

~

Weeks passed, and Elio heard nothing. He suspected his parents were avoiding the subject of the wedding, though they had likely sent their RSVP card already without speaking more of it to him.

He came home one day after a long session of music transcription, Billowy over a tee shirt enveloping his small frame, headphones still on and Walkman in his pocket still playing a melancholy melody that fit his now-perpetual mood, his unending longing for a thing never again to experience.

Elio climbed the stairs two at a time, eager to find respite in his room from the agony of performing normalcy in front of people. He could just be alone and feel the depth of his grief privately.

Something caught his eye, the door to his old room/Oliver’s room slightly ajar. In a panic, he worried that Mafalda had disobeyed his instructions and changed things around, destroying what little touches of Oliver were left there. He pulled his headphones down, reaching from the doorknob, and then gasped at the sight that awaited him.

There, looking out the window, was Oliver.

Oliver, who turned at Elio’s entrance to the room.

“You didn’t have to come to talk to me in person. I accept that you’re getting married, and I’m happy for you, truly happy,” he said before Oliver could get a word in.

“Oliver,” the older man spoke quietly, patiently, calmly.

It caught Elio off guard, to hear Oliver call him by his name here, in person, with that look upon his face.

The uncertainty that had once characterized their every interaction had returned, and Elio found himself looking for a reason to be close to Oliver. He dropped his things on the bed and leapt at Oliver, allowing his body in this moment to say what he couldn’t voice. It was a dangerous game, as the potential for misinterpretation had proven itself a true obstacle, but their bodies were better at communicating to one another than before.

The way Elio’s hands wrapped so desperately around Oliver’s neck spoke volumes for his feelings. He buried his face in Oliver’s neck and shirt and stomach, crying as he crumpled in the man’s arms. He might be making a fool of himself, but in Oliver’s presence, all the grief of the last few months poured out of him and Oliver was the only cure.

“It’s okay,” Oliver cooed, fingers clutching and stroking Elio all over, holding him up, grasping his neck and shoulders as the younger man choked on his tears.

They sunk down to the floor beneath the un-shuttered window, and Oliver clutched Elio’s small frame in his larger one, their bodies shaking together in reunion. Elio pulled away, realizing suddenly that he was getting Oliver wet with his tears and the mucous (better than blood, he supposed) that trickled out of his nostrils with the effort of his crying. “It’s fine,” Oliver reassured him, pulling Elio’s head back to rest on his chest. “I’m here.”

It took a while for Elio’s breathing to calm, and soon he was resting quietly in Oliver’s arms, almost asleep for the safety and relief he felt at once. 

Unwilling to let this moment depart so quickly, they were both silent except for the sounds of breathing and sniffling that escaped them occasionally. Oliver stroked Elio’s arm, and Elio’s hand wrapped thin fingers around Oliver’s neck, cherishing the cropped hair at his nape and the strong muscles he found there.

It was later, when the sun was setting, that Elio finally brought them both out of the moment. “Why did you come here?” he asked, pulling back just enough to look Oliver in the eyes. 

“To see you,” he answered in that way only Oliver could, saying so little verbally, and leaving so much to interpretation. Of course he had come to see Elio, but why? A million questions ran through Elio’s mind at that moment, wondering if the wedding was still on, or if his parents had given him away, or if Oliver was really here visiting them.

Before Elio could clarify what was a superbly unhelpful answer, Oliver continued speaking. “You haven’t moved back into your room?” he asked observantly.

Elio knew how clear it must be why. His demands about the room staying the same were betraying his feelings now. It still looked like it had that last morning before they had gone on their mini-holiday, before Oliver had departed Italy and Elio for the States and his old life.

“I had to try to keep a little bit of you here in this room, if nothing else,” Elio said, shame peeking out through his voice as he realized how desperate and pathetic he must sound.

“Billowy wasn’t enough of a souvenir?” he asked, almost jovially, picking at the wide collar of what used to be his own shirt.

“Nothing will ever be enough,” Elio replied somberly, looking him in the eyes once again. “Except you,” he finished. It was a dramatic statement, and one that he spoke with so much conviction that anyone would be hard-pressed to believe he was a boy of barely eighteen with so little worldly experience.

“I see,” Oliver said, nodding as though he understood. But he was the same Oliver that Elio had once known, bright and beautiful and perfect as ever, while Elio was here wasting away for his absence. 

Oliver put his forehead against Elio’s, pressing their brows together, putting his fingers through Elio’s grown-out curls, breathing the same air. He leaned in further, his hand delicately grasping Elio’s cheek and chin, and kissed him gently, so gently. 

Elio stopped breathing.

Oliver pulled away, breathless himself but still more composed than the younger man. Mirroring what he had said right after their first kiss at Monet’s berm, Oliver asked, “Better?”

Elio met his eyes, searching for something –anything—to explain what was happening right now. “Maybe,” he answered. Or more precisely, yes _and_ no.

“Let’s have a nap. You look done-in. We can talk more when you wake up,” Oliver directed, taking charge of the situation. After all, he was the one who had come here. He was the one that needed to explain things.

Elio looked afraid to sleep, like Oliver might flee while his guard was down and chalk the whole thing up to a reverie. “It’s alright,” Oliver assured him, reading Elio’s face like he had been so adept at for as long as they’d known each other. “I’ll be here when you wake up." 

And then, like no time had passed since when they were so intimately connected they were practically one being, sleep found them both on two twin beds pushed together that still held the impression of their bodies in the mussed sheets.

~

Elio awoke to the sound of a toilet flushing, reached out for the space next to him where Oliver’s body had cradled his as they fell asleep together. It was still warm, but empty. Elio looked up, meeting Oliver’s eyes in the bathroom doorway as he buttoned his slacks back up.

“You’re still here,” Elio said in wonderment. His glazed eyes betrayed the worry behind them – that this had been a beautiful dream and nothing more. Or worse, that Oliver _had_ been here, but had left while Elio slept.

But here Oliver was, right in front of him, and gazing back at him with a lightness that seemed to lift Elio out of the darkness he had been mired in for months.

“I told you I would be,” Oliver said, a slight smirk pulling the corner of his mouth up.

“Why are you here?” Elio repeated his earlier question, running a hand through his hair to tame the bedhead he had developed from their nap. He sat up and rested against the headboard, holding out a hand hesitantly to invite Oliver to join him there. For a moment, he worried that Oliver would not take his hand, that Elio had misinterpreted their kiss earlier, that this was all some cruel joke that would play out at Elio’s expense. But Oliver wasn’t cruel, not like Elio had thought him to be at first. 

Oliver walked the few steps from the bathroom doorway to the bedside, took Elio’s hand, and kissed the back of it before clambering onto the bed and to rest beside Elio against the headboard. They were so close they were touching once more, and Elio seized the opportunity to lean into him and run his hands over Oliver’s chest.

“I’m here,” Oliver said as he realized Elio was just going to lay there quietly, “because I thought I was the only one suffering. I thought you would bounce back from our time together and move on. When you called me, so many months later, I realized that for you, there was a real possibility of us being together long-term. I had never let myself dream of that.” 

He spoke quietly, making circles on Elio’s upper arm with his fingers as Elio stroked his chest and nestled into his neck.

“Why didn’t you think of being with me, then? Why were you so willing to go back and be with your ex?” Elio tried not to sound bitter or hurt, but his tone betrayed his feelings.

“You’re in this bubble here in Italy, Elio,” Oliver didn’t sound condescending, but Elio knew there were bad things happening here just like there were in the States. “When I was here, everything felt possible and wonderful and acceptable, but it’s not like that at home. There’s GRID, and so much hate and fear, and that’s not a life I thought I wanted.”

“It’s not perfect here, you know?” Elio countered, finally looking Oliver in the eyes. “You think I’ve never been teased or bullied? I have. Just because I like girls too doesn’t make people any less hateful.”

“I just, even in New York, it’s not okay. It’s not an easy life.” Oliver sighed, stroking the smaller man’s pale arm.

“Believe me, I know how lucky I am,” Elio said, thinking of his parents whose acceptance – nay, encouragement – of his and Oliver’s _friendship_ was unmatched.

“You are,” Oliver said, thinking of his own family. His father was a military man and his mother a socialite, neither of whom seemed to appreciate his academic pursuits. He didn’t dare suggest to them he might be interested in a relationship with another man. 

The room was silent but for their calm breaths intermingling and the soft touch of fabric and skin against each other.

“What now?” Elio asked, fearing the answer.

“What do you want, Elio?” Oliver asked, nuzzling the spot behind Elio’s ear where his curls tickled his nape.

“Right now,” Elio said, “I just want you.”

“I think we can say that the feeling is mutual,” Oliver answered, a sly smile upon his lips.

“And later?” Elio said, “I’ll still want you. I’ll want you today and tomorrow and next week and next year.”

“You’re so –”

“If you say I’m too young to know what I want then you haven’t been paying attention.”

Oliver sighed, knowing Elio was right. Though the age difference between them seemed like a lot now, once Elio was 21 in the States it wouldn’t be much of an issue at all. Oliver was finishing up graduate school, and Elio was on his way to being a world-renowned musician. They were better matched than their ages might suggest.

“I’m not asking you for forever,” Elio said, looking directly into Oliver’s eyes to make sure he took him seriously. “Just for as long as this is what it is. Don’t fight it, don’t try to be something else, just be with me for as long as you want to be.”

“Is that all?” Oliver asked with a grin.

“That’s all,” Elio said, “È tutto.” He smiled up at Oliver with such love in his gaze, such hope.

For all that Elio had been a wreck before, it seemed so simply fixed. If Oliver would be with him, then Elio’s anguish was ended. He still had to grow up, to become a successful pianist, to make his way in the world. But if Oliver was willing to be at his side, none of that seemed quite so scary. And for Elio’s part, he knew he would want Oliver ‘til his last breath.

~ 

It was a long while before the two of them were able to leave Elio’s room – their room, now – to go and visit with Samuel and Annella. They had not attempted to visit Elio’s room and left the two men to work out their issues privately.

Despite the promises Oliver and Elio had whispered to each other in the dark and quiet of the room, their fragile agreement seemed so new and tenuous, like leaving the bubble of Elio’s room might burst it and destroy their newfound understanding. 

A day and a night had passed since Oliver had come to Crema now, and they were both starving. First, they had met this hunger by taking what they could from each other’s bodies, but now the need for sustenance outweighed their own desire for one another. It manifested itself in rumblings and gurgling that the men joked about, choosing to forgo one bodily need in favor of another. 

One final grumble from tiny Elio’s starving stomach demanded they move from their comfortable spooning on the beds. Elio groaned, stretching himself out in the streaks of sunlight that shone through slats in the shutters on his bedroom window, cherishing every movement that grazed Oliver’s body beside and beneath him. Oliver, too, seemed unwilling to move from this spot, holding Elio as close as he could without joining their two bodies into one, like he was afraid when he let go, Elio would be lost to him forever.

They helped each other dress, Oliver grinning as he placed the broad-shouldered button down over Elio’s tiny frame, kneeling down to give one last kiss against his soft crotch before pulling slacks up to cover the briefs the younger man was wearing. Elio, too, cherished these quiet, intimate moments when the two of them didn’t need words. Oliver’s sculptural body was _his_ now, with the promise that Elio could look upon it and worship it whenever he wanted, as long as he wanted.

When they were decently dressed and before lust could once again co-opt their desire for food, Oliver opened the door to Elio’s room and led the two of them downstairs, holding Elio tight to him and matching him step for step, unwilling to let him go even to walk side by side.

Oliver’s hands roamed Elio’s body, holding him tight across his abdomen, stroking his hair and kissing the nape of his neck under those long, dark, curls, finally moving away from him as they approached the kitchen to rest a broad hand against Elio’s shoulder blades, enough of a touch that neither felt bereft but still remaining decent as they inevitably found Samuel and Annella.

Sure enough, Elio’s parents were seated at a table in the kitchen, drops of espresso remaining in cups, eggs in a basket ready to be cut, newspapers laying out on the table and in Samuel’s hands.

When the two walked in, Annella smiled broadly at their body language and Samuel looked up with that understanding look in his eyes.

Elio thumped down into a seat ungracefully, and Oliver sat beside him, subconsciously turning the chair towards him slightly. 

Oliver smiled nervously, uncertain whether Samuel or Annella would say anything outright, or just be their wonderful, understated selves. When he had called them to let them know he was coming to visit Elio, they had asked very few questions and been graceful and generous in their acceptance of his self-invitation.

“Look at our two boys, my darling,” Samuel said to Annella.

She glanced at them and then back to her husband. “They look so happy.”

Although the Perlmans spoke of Oliver and Elio as though they weren’t there, it was enough of an acknowledgment. Oliver was part of the family, for as long as he wanted to be, and as long as Elio wanted him to be. 


End file.
